Lindsey Dallas had been mugged in front of Gin's apartment two week ago. Many bystanders watched from their balconies as she struggled to get away, screaming and punching. None of them so much as bothered to dial the police; Gin was the one to report the incident when he came home and found her battered, bruised, and presumably left for dead. The mugger was clean, white, and presentable, witnesses said. When asked why they didn't call the police, they either said "I thought he was her boyfriend," or "I didn't want to get involved." None of them expressed a concern for the girl other than a polite "I hope she doesn't die."

That was when Gin realized his apartment was full of pyschopaths.

His new landlady, Mrs Edith Webster, was taking care of her flowers again when he came by with the last of the few boxes. He carried a couple up the driveway.

"Hello, Mrs Webster. Have you heard if the mugger's been caught?"

His neighbor blinked. "What mugger?"

"You know. The one who almost killed Lindsey Dallas."

"The girl with the no-good boyfriend? She shouldn't hang out with people like him. Probably wanted to be a bad girl. Bad girls will drag you down, Gin. Don't date one." She hadn't even known him for a week and she was already sounding like his grandmother.

"Lindsey wasn't a freakin' bad girl." Gin took a breath. "Do you know what I've noticed?"

"What did you notice, dear?"

"Do you know, out of the hundreds of people I've asked, not one of them blamed the freakin' mugger. It's always, 'she shouldn't have been dating him' or 'it's her fault for wearing all that jewelry out in public'. Not one of them had any sympathy for Linnie! None!"

Gin didn't hear. "They just say, 'she deserved it' and go on with their pathetic little lives. My sister is freakin' dying in the hospital, and they just go, 'well, if she's been beaten she must have been very bad!'" He dropped the box. Instead of picking it up, he sat down beside it and held his head. "How horrible does a crime have to be before the bad guy actually gets blamed for it? How many people have to die? Two? Six? Twelve?"

Mrs. Webster lifted a hand to pat him on the back, but she realized her gloves were covered in potting soil. "I'm a Christian, Gin. I can pray for Lindsey, if you want."

"No, thanks. I don't believe in God." Gin stood up and picked up the box.

June 21, 2012

The body armor was easy to obtain. The bullets, somewhat harder, since he needed a lot, but he walked out with a couple thousand of them. The four guns were actually the easiest, thanks to whoever interpreted "the right to bare arms".

Gin dressed himself up with all of it and looked in the mirror. He could probably pass as simply wearing a very bulky coat. After all, no one was scared of a smiling, clean, white man. All he had to do was follow the plan. If his theory was right, the public would struggle between being horrifed and being curious about his own life. They would look past his misdeeds and realize, hey, his sister's dying and nobody did anything. Gin reasoned that they would feel sorry for him and completely forget the victims.

In which case, that was proof that the world was insane.

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